Everything you need to know about Qualcomm Quick Charge

Being able to charge your phone or tablet faster at home — and more importantly when you're on the go — may be one of the biggest improvement we've seen in mobile tech in some time.

Updated May 2, 2017 with the latest information about Qualcomm QukckCharge 4.0.

And while one of the many cool things about living in 2017 is not necessarily needing to understand how a lot of the tech around you works, if you take the time to better understand what you are using there's a good chance you'll get more out of it. A perfect simple example is the power supply you use for your smartphone.

If you've purchased a new phone recently, there's a good chance the power supply in the box is capable of charging your phone significantly faster than any of the other chargers you have in the house. This little slice of magic is called Quick Charge from Qualcomm, and it's a two-step process that promises to safely charge your phone faster than any other tech out there right now.

Quick Charge 4.0

Quick Charge 4.0 has three key improvements: It's 20% faster and 30% more efficient than Quick Charge 3 and runs about five degrees Celsius cooler. Additional "battery saver" features will prolong the life of the battery in your phone, and QC 4.0 is said to be fully USB-C USB-PD (Power Delivery) compliant.

Hearing faster and more efficient is standard for any update. This time they mean it.

We all love faster charging and batteries that live longer. But the last feature in our list is perhaps the most important. The latest Android Compatibility Definition Document, Google has strongly recommended manufacturers move away from non-standard USB-C charging solutions like Quick Charge and adhere to the USB-PD spec. With QC 4.0, you'll not only be able to extend your phone usage by up to five hours with just five minutes of charging, but won't have to worry as much about matching the charger to the thing being charged.

QC 4.0 also includes the latest iteration of Qualcomm's custom power management algorithm, Intelligent Negotiation for Optimum Voltage (INOV). Additions include real-time thermal management which will regulate the temperature during power delivery to keep things safer and more efficient. New power management ICs are also part of the picture and will come with QC 4-ready devices.

Expect to see devices with Quick Charge 4.0 starting in the first half of 2017.

Quick Charge 3.0

In late 2015, Qualcomm released Quick Charge 3.0. Using the same basic science and technology as they did with Quick Charge 2.0, you'll be able to charge phones using QC 3.0 compatible equipment even faster.

In laboratory tests using a 2750mAh battery, a Quick Charge 3.0 enabled device went from 0% to 80% charge in 35 minutes, while a device without Quick Charge 3.0 using a conventional (5 volt, 1 amp) charger achieved just a 12% gain in the same 30 minutes.

It works using what Qualcomm is calling Intelligent Negotiation for Optimum Voltage (INOV). This is a new computational algorithm that allows the device being charged to determine the power level it needs at any point in time, which means it's always working with the most efficient and optimized power transfer rate. Support for a wider range of voltage options — 200mV increments from 3.6V to 20V — means your phone can dynamically target one of dozens of charging levels.

Quick Charge 3.0 is implemented the same way previous versions were, and all QC 3.0 equipment is fully backwards compatible with Quick Charge 2.0 and Quick Charge 1.0 devices. QC 3.0 supports USB Type-A, USB Type-C and micro USB, as well as proprietary connections. It's easy for manufacturers to use QC 3.0 on a wide variety of chargers and devices.

Quick Charge 2.0

Quick Charge 2.0 is a Qualcomm-made platform, which the company describes as a "comprehensive suite of battery management technologies" for charging your device using any ordinary Micro-USB cable. The two requirements for Quick Charge 2.0 are a Snapdragon-based smartphone or tablet and a Quick Charge 2.0-certified power supply. Because this is a proprietary mechanism, both the power supply and the phone or tablet have be licensed and certified by Qualcomm in order to function properly. Since nearly every new smartphone that offers Quick Charge 2.0 comes with a compatible power supply, you almost always have what you need to take advantage of this technology out of the box. (Some 2014 phones, like the Moto X and HTC One M8 had the capability but shipped before the wall chargers were ready.)

You will find Snapdragon-based devices where the manufacturer has opted out of paying for a license to use Quick Charge 2.0, for example the OnePlus One, so be sure to check the specs on your next device to be absolutely sure you're getting this feature if you want it.

Most of the heavy lifting for this technology is done through the power supply — the part you plug into the wall or into your car. Most power supply bricks that come with phones today offer at least 5 volts at 1 amp of power. In some cases you'll see as high as 5V at 2.1A output on your power supply brick, which will charge most smartphones and tablets noticeably faster. Qualcomm's Quick Charge tech allows for multiple options to be used in charging a device, and they come in several shapes and sizes. For example, the power brick in the Droid Turbo offers 5V at 1.6A, 9V at 1.6A, and 12V at 1.2A output. Quick Charge 2.0 is designed to support greater power outputs than what is offered by the Droid Turbo, but we'll likely only see that if the manufacturer licensing the technology determines it necessary — and safe.

Quick Charge 2.0 is built to charge your device quickly, but there are specific power outputs that apply to the current state of your battery. In other words, it won't juice up faster unless it needs to.

The tech works by knowing the current condition of your battery and intelligently regulating the power your device is receiving. As a result, your phone will not charge from 70 percent to 100 percent nearly as fast as it will from 0 percent to 60 percent. This is why you see almost every Quick Charge ad brag about the ability to go from "dead" to over "half-charged" in as little as 30 minutes. As you can see from the power options offered by the Droid Turbo charger, topping off the battery uses the more common charging mode of 5V at 1.6A output. This isn't a bad thing. In fact, it's a vital safety measure to keep your phone from exploding, and it is also something to keep in mind if you're the type to keep your phone topped off any chance you get.

The biggest question to come from the existence of this technology is almost always about battery life, specifically whether or not this technology is damaging the total life expectancy of the battery in your device. As a general rule, slower charging keeps your battery functioning as intended for longer than rapidly charging the battery. (A side-effect of the higher charge rate is heat. And heat, generally speaking, is the enemy of electronics.) That said, there's no evidence to support the notion that users would notice any negative effects associated with constantly using Quick Charge over the average life span of a smartphone, which is a little over two years. As long as we're all still using lithium-ion batteries in smartphones, the potential for anything negative to happen with your battery is no different with Quick Charge than it is through any other charger, which is to say next to zero as long as the battery isn't being abused.

Here's what Qualcomm had to say on the subject when we asked them:

Quick Charge 2.0 does not change the way battery charging takes place today. The level of the current going into the battery is controlled by the OEM and depends on battery capacity, battery type, and other factors. Quick Charge 2.0 allows device manufacturers to achieve the full rated capability of the batteries they choose while still meeting the performance and safety standards set by the battery manufacturer. With Quick Charge 2.0, the life of large-format batteries (2000mAh and above) will be in line with that of smaller format batteries charging from traditional USB chargers.

There's a lot of discussion surrounding the practical applications of Quick Charge 2.0, and whether or not the tech is worth investing in as a user. Quick Charge is widely seen as a workaround, so manufacturers can continue to put batteries in their devices that either aren't large enough to get a resource-intensive user through an entire day or continue to make it so batteries are not removable. While everyone should want to live in a world where smartphones can survive whatever we throw at them and still have plenty of battery life remaining at the end of the day, reality just hasn't caught up yet.

If anything, Quick Charge is a way to use your phone without having to rely on things that cripple your usage like Ultra Power Save Mode. Being able to plug your phone in for a couple of minutes and have the necessary juice to survive the evening is significantly nicer than making your phone barely worth using, and so long as the battery in your phone is designed to handle Quick Charge 2.0 it's a welcomed addition to the ecosystem.

Well I have an LG G2 with QC 1.0. I also have an ZTE Axon 7 with QC 3.0. They have similar capacity batteries. I can tell very little difference in charging speed.
I think the difference between QC 1.0, QC 2.0, QC 3.0, QC 4.0, is more hype than anything else.

Well I can tell you, with my experiences, my Note 5 charges remarkably faster with a Quickcharge charger. Will charge my phone completely in just over an hour. vs a regular charger taking, easily, 2 hours plus. There's just no comparison. The phone will even tell you if it's in quickcharge. Meanwhile the charger isn't all the difference either. The cables make all the difference as well. They will stop a quickcharge charger from fast charging.

"We all love faster charging and batteries that live longer. But the last feature in our list is perhaps the most important. The latest Android Compatibility Definition Document, Google has strongly recommended manufacturers move away from non-standard USB-C charging solutions like Quick Charge and adhere to the USB-PD spec. With QC 4.0, you'll not only be able to extend your phone usage by up to five hours with just five minutes of charging, but won't have to worry as much about matching the charger to the thing being charged."

So does QC 4 implement the USB-PD spec?
Also, I have a Pixel XL. It does not support any version of QC as far as I can figure out, you have to use the charger that was supplied by Google to get "rapid charging". I guess that's the USB-PD spec. I was shopping for a car charger that supported rapid charging on the Pixel, but all I could find was the Belkin one Google sells for $55. Can anyone shed any light on this? Thanks.

Great article. As all phones bar my RAZR maxx none make it through a full day without a top up.
Being in sales I use it for a hell of a lot for most things diary, email, satnav, messaging and of course phonecalls. Then at the gym for podcasts. Even charging throughout the day it still runs low. Currently 24% on my Nexus 6p.

Quickcharge is super and I'm all for version 4 but am hoping for wireless distance charging or some new breakthrough tech for batteries

Quick Charge 2.0 is a system that allows the battery charging circuitry to request higher power from the AC/DC or DC/DC converters (a.k.a. wall or car power supplies).

While a normal charging phone can regulate the power received by means of controlling the current flow, there are practical limits about how high can the current be. For example, even if the power supply could provide 40 Amps, this amount of current would burn the cables.
The alternative to increasing power without raising current too much is increasing voltage. Since it is not possible for the charging circuit to control how high is the voltage in the power supply, then it needs a way to tell the power supply how high should the voltage be. Quick Charge 2.0 provides this mechanism.

At the start of the charge the phone can request higher voltage. This will result in higher power without the power loss, heat and danger of higher current. When reaching the second stage the phone can request the power supply to reduce the voltage to 5 volts again.

A QC2.0 phone can also use a regular power supply. The worst that can happen is that the dump power supply would not respond to the higher voltage request.

Similarly, if a regular phone is connector a QC2.0 power supply it would supply the standard 5 volts. No danger here.

It is not clear (in the documentation that I have found) how this communication happens. One alternative is to use the USB data wires. The other option is via power line control. PLC is similar to how X10 wall switches (or USB switched, or Insteon) can send a signal via power lines to a lamp X10 switch in other parts of the house (technology from 1978).

What I got from this is that if you device is equipped with quick charge technology, then it is okay to charge using a quick charger. Doing so doesn't harm your battery any more or any less than a regular device would be if it was being charged by a regular charger.

How about charging my note 4 with the moto charger? They both read different power outputs (mainly the moto notes 3 level, as seen in the article), is there any chance of harm or change in the way Samsung wants me to charge the device compared to the way moto wants to on their devices?

Traditional Lithium ion battery's charge in 2 stages. The first is charging at constant current. This stages brings the battery up to about 85% of its capacity. During this stage the battery voltage increases linearly with time. At the end of this stage the battery will reach it's maximum safe voltage. At this point the second stage of charging takes place. This is charging at constant voltage. During constant voltage charging the charging current is continually decreased to keep the voltage constant at the maximum safe voltage. This stage can be thought of as packing the last 15% of charge into the battery. At the end of constant voltage charging the charging current is stopped with no trickle charge. The charging circuits in the phone handle all of the requirements to charge the battery. In addition protection/safety circuits are added to prevent over current and over voltage condition from occuring to the battery should the charging circuit fail. Quick charge increases the charging current during the early part of the first stage.

When a battery is fully charged, the charging circuit prevents current from flowing. There is no trickle charge with Lithium ion battery's. If the charging circuits fail and allow further charging, the battery will puff up and eventually go BOOM.

Use both, like me on my LG G4. I keep a spare battery charged at all time in case I need to go from 0 to 100% in about 20 seconds. Meanwhile, I use Quickcharge 2.0 chargers when I have a little time to charge my phones. Since I'm regularly swapping out my batteries it will be twice as long before I have to worry about battery life degradation.

My Moto Z Force gives me the best of both worlds. It's rapid charge, and has a huge battery more than sufficient for almost any day. If I'm going to be away from a charger longer them that, a battery mod attached to the device and adds 40℅ to the battery, and one of them is Qi wireless charging. No messy taking off the back and swapping our of batteries.

As much as I see the need for quick charge (as evidenced by the number of people that ask me for a charger at 6pm), I enjoy my tylt at night since my Turbo still has 20%. Quick charge is great as an emergency thing, but let's not lose sight of the fact that it's a stop-gap to getting better battery life to begin with. That said, who here would give up 1440p to down grade to 1080p and get better battery life?

Honestly, I would not mind it. If more companies had a 720p screen that are lower than 5 inches, then I might consider them for a secondary phone over my current moto g4 play. Also, there are some people, like my dad, who prefer small phones like that.

I purposely bought Xperia Z3 Compact with 720p last month, knowing it will have great battery life and it's easy to handle with one hand. Could have bought 2K display phones like Oppo Find 7 or LG G3 with the same price, or go cheaper with 1080p on Oppo Find 7A.

I went to Moto X2 to Xiaomi Mi4 for better battery life despite losing on Stock Android experience and a good camera. Battery is very critical to heavy users as without it one is always anxious and you keep on charging the device with your portables.

Great article and information. This article leads to this comment. Since manufacturers went from the Ni-Mh to lithium ion batteries of today, is there still an opportunity for charge loss from over charging the battery? I noticed this is the case with iPad 2 and 3 where its constantly plugged in at work. No more charging icon but rather "Not charging".

While I am not an expert, I think the manufacturers have built in protections to prevent overcharging.

It is my understanding that Apple and most other manufacturers figured people might use their devices plugged in at all times and built in some safe guards to notice that and then utilize power for operation and not charging.

Overcharging a Lithium battery is dangerous, actually. Which is why all properly made charging circuits inside devices will stop charging entirely when they reach maximum.

iPads and some other devices take it a step further and do not charge for about 5% of the capacity in an effort to not burn out the battery. Charging a Lithium battery to 100% has a slight effect on its overall capacity, which over time adds up. It's more prevalent in larger batteries, like those in a tablet, as well as cars. Teslas for instance will keep you from charging beyond 90% unless you specifically instruct it to, in order to preserve long term battery capacity.

It's a pity HTC are releasing minimum quantity's at a time of their UK (3 pin) version of quick charge 2.0! Very scarce.
With all the publicity HTC gave quick charge at the launch of the M8 it's disappointing it's taken this long to get our to market.
I might look at or again when I update my phone. Maybe manufacturers will supply it as standard on their new devices...

Great article! Even so, I believe I will keep using my quick charge 1.0 charger that came with my HTC one m8 at home, and use the Quick-charge 2.0 charger on my car only. I believe we should use it only when it's necessary.